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As the State Legislature rushes to conclude their busy and controversial session for the year, a bill that includes a requirement for carbon monoxide detectors in hotels is slated for final action today. The House and Senate tentatively approved a version of the regulations rewrite bill
in negotiations over the past several days, with votes expected early today. The bill, among many other regulations, would respond to the three carbon-monoxide deaths at the Boone Best Western motel this spring by ordering hotels and motels to install battery-powered detectors by October until building codes can be updated to mandate hard-wired detectors. Other items stuffed into the legislation was a Senate-backed provision that rolls back safeguards adopted in 2007, when environmental groups and community activists were worried large landfills in eastern North Carolina would become homes for out-of-state refuse. Proposed landfills would no longer need to be a mile from state game lands. Garbage trucks would no longer need to be leak-proof, but leak resistant. The garbage side of the bill apparently has a certain odor to it, according to even supporters, with the merits of the landfill changes never considered by the House, according to Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, who told ABC11, "The bill is gonna pass. It's been greased. It's an awful process."